Day 02 - A Show That You Wish More People Were Watching
At first I thought that this would be a difficult one. First of all, not only am I in the States and, at the moment, most of my fandom priorities run entirely British, it would be hard to come up with a show that I think should be watched by more people universally and not just back at home. Then, I thought of doing one just for the States, where we seem to obsessed with reality television shows and the ilk, and one for overseas but that's not the point of the question.
It hit me, suddenly, and out of the blue, as I watched the CBS Sunday Morning News, something which I will get up for on a Sunday morning to watch, and I knew exactly what more people should be watching: the news.
If one can grant me the indulgence of allowing the news to be called a "show," which, in some places, I swear that's how they try and make it out to be, then I will continue.
Everyone, especially in America, should be watching more news. And I'm not talking about the horribly skewed news channels like Fox News (which, you cannot deny, has faced allegations numerous times about having a biased swing of things) or CNN (that's a whole lot of rubbish there as well), but watch BBC News Worldwide or grab a copy of the New York Times or the International Herald Tribune. Get some real news, some international news, and be a world citizen, not just a local one.
I for one, am I proud reader of BBC News online since 2004 when I realized how horrible CNN was becoming, what with all of their videos and crap news stories about celebrities, and the total disregard for international news, that made me switch. Ever since then, my homepage for Firefox, my main browser, has been bbc.co.uk/news/ (although I could have sworn that it was once news.bcc.co.uk). I've thought of switching, on ocassion, to places I visit more frequently, but I never do.
It's been great, on a global perspective, to wake up, switch on my computer, turn on the browser, and see the world headlines streaming across my screen in small tidbits that I could read. I learned about the Queensland flooding months before my local newspaper even thought of putting it on the third bloody page! That, of all things, infuriated me. Everyone I knew seemed to be oblivious to the floods but me! What a horrible lot of people we are, us Americans, if we don't even care to turn on some international news once and a while!
Then, when the problems in the Middle East started to become, well, problems, I was first to know before the paper even made it to the breakfast table. When Egypt came out of it's turmoil a few weeks ago, I immediately switched tot he BBC Worldwide broadcast and watched it on my second monitor at work.
Even if one isn't a fan of BBC News, try something like the NY Times. They are respectable, give a lot more information in their news articles than the BBC ever does, and from time to time they come out with amazing segments like What Is It About 20-Somethings?, an article I suggest everyone read (I'm in that pocket, unfortunately).
Overall, I believe that everyone, Americans, Brits, Australians, Middle Easterners, Libyans, Russians, Chinese, Japanese, etc etc should all be watching the news however they can. We are all citizens of this world and we should start acting like one. I try my hardest, I truly do, and through my flist I learn about cultural differences, about different idioms, and politics of places I never would have known otherwise.
But the news, well, that's where it should all start.
It hit me, suddenly, and out of the blue, as I watched the CBS Sunday Morning News, something which I will get up for on a Sunday morning to watch, and I knew exactly what more people should be watching: the news.
If one can grant me the indulgence of allowing the news to be called a "show," which, in some places, I swear that's how they try and make it out to be, then I will continue.
Everyone, especially in America, should be watching more news. And I'm not talking about the horribly skewed news channels like Fox News (which, you cannot deny, has faced allegations numerous times about having a biased swing of things) or CNN (that's a whole lot of rubbish there as well), but watch BBC News Worldwide or grab a copy of the New York Times or the International Herald Tribune. Get some real news, some international news, and be a world citizen, not just a local one.
I for one, am I proud reader of BBC News online since 2004 when I realized how horrible CNN was becoming, what with all of their videos and crap news stories about celebrities, and the total disregard for international news, that made me switch. Ever since then, my homepage for Firefox, my main browser, has been bbc.co.uk/news/ (although I could have sworn that it was once news.bcc.co.uk). I've thought of switching, on ocassion, to places I visit more frequently, but I never do.
It's been great, on a global perspective, to wake up, switch on my computer, turn on the browser, and see the world headlines streaming across my screen in small tidbits that I could read. I learned about the Queensland flooding months before my local newspaper even thought of putting it on the third bloody page! That, of all things, infuriated me. Everyone I knew seemed to be oblivious to the floods but me! What a horrible lot of people we are, us Americans, if we don't even care to turn on some international news once and a while!
Then, when the problems in the Middle East started to become, well, problems, I was first to know before the paper even made it to the breakfast table. When Egypt came out of it's turmoil a few weeks ago, I immediately switched tot he BBC Worldwide broadcast and watched it on my second monitor at work.
Even if one isn't a fan of BBC News, try something like the NY Times. They are respectable, give a lot more information in their news articles than the BBC ever does, and from time to time they come out with amazing segments like What Is It About 20-Somethings?, an article I suggest everyone read (I'm in that pocket, unfortunately).
Overall, I believe that everyone, Americans, Brits, Australians, Middle Easterners, Libyans, Russians, Chinese, Japanese, etc etc should all be watching the news however they can. We are all citizens of this world and we should start acting like one. I try my hardest, I truly do, and through my flist I learn about cultural differences, about different idioms, and politics of places I never would have known otherwise.
But the news, well, that's where it should all start.